Various types of devices are used for extracting corks from bottles of wine. Of these, the best known is probably the simple corkscrew having an integral handle and a helical metal worm to rotate into the cork. A relatively high degree of skill and expertise is required to keep the simple corkscrew properly aligned and centered as it is being driven into a cork. Where the rotation of the corkscrew is significantly divergent from the central axis of the cork, the worm bears against the neck of the bottle causing the worm to grind rather than pierce the cork. A broken cork can stymie the efforts to pour the wine within the bottle making the simple corkscrew an impediment to rather than an implement for gaining access to the wine within the bottle.
More elaborate types of apparatus include a pair of handheld clamps that engage the neck of a bottle and insure alignment with the cork's central axis. With such alignment, the worm can be driven through the center of the cork such that its helix surrounds the axis and both engages and loosens the cork within the neck of the bottle. A patent that teaches the sued of the control nut is that Herbert Allen obtained U.S. Pat. No. 4,253,351 for a CORK EXTRACTOR. In addition to the handheld clamp, the Allen patent uses a control nut having a screw passage positioned to receive the worm and to guide the worm into the cork, as the worm moves along the cork's axis. The control nut imparts torque to the helical worm upon translation of the worm up and down in a frame in response to rotation of a crank lever. The Allen solution assures a far greater likelihood of successful extraction when compared to a manually turned T-handle to screw the worm into the cork.
Other cork screw patents have been issued having a similar cork extracting apparatus such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 678,773, 644,088, 776,152 and 532,575. The worm is rotatably mounted in a driver, which reciprocates along a frame. As the driver and worm are moved downwardly by a suitable actuator such as a crank handle, the worm is driven by a lateral motion through a mating screw passage in a control nut. During this movement, the control nut is restrained against both longitudinal and rotational movements relative to the frame. The worm is allowed to rotate as the driver moves the worm into the control nut. Thus is the worm driven into the cork in a bottle as the bottle is fixed in position below the control nut. Subsequently, the driver and worm are refracted upwardly by further movement of the actuator. At this time the control nut is still restrained against rotational movement with respect to the frame but is permitted to move longitudinally with the driver and worm. Thus, the corkscrew may be drawn upwardly without rotation to extract the engaged cork from the bottle.
Most such devices further provide for stripping the extracted cork from the screw. In particular, the actuator is used to again lower the carrier, corkscrew, and control nut, and when the latter reaches its original position, it is once again restrained against longitudinal movement with respect to the frame. Then, as the carrier is raised a second time, the corkscrew moving therewith will be rotated in a reverse direction by virtue of its passage through the screw passage of the fixed control nut, and will thereby be removed from the cork.
Bottled wines, however, are usually sealed with a foil which covers the head portion of a bottle wine. Thus, before a cork can be extracted from a bottle and the wine within can be poured, the sealing foil must be removed. Removal of the foil is a separate motion with a distinct set of tools. Foil cutters for removing foil from the neck of a wine bottle, however, are well known and are a common household item.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,845,844 describes a separate foil cutter with a plurality of cutting wheels distributed around the perimeter of a circle. The foil cutter includes a bifurcated hand piece in which two cutting wheels are disposed on corresponding opposite sides on the bifurcated arms. The bifurcated arms are resiliently movable towards each other so that the plurality of cutting wheels can move into cutting engagement with the sealing foils.
Likewise, U.S. Pat. No. 5,653,023 describes a foil cutter with a U-shaped body and a sharp metal cutting blade that is substantially curved in a semi-circular shaped disposed on each side of the U-shaped body. Each of these foil cutters is a distinct implement from any cork extractor and must be applied to remove foil before the cork extractor can remove the cork from the bottle.
What is missing from the art is a foil cutting cork extractor configured to remove the foil and cork in a single motion.